Green Tea and Bone Growth
Reduce Osteoporosis and Fracture

Green tea and bone studies have consistently found that it promotes bone growth and reduces osteoporosis risk.

Studies have found that regular tea consumption preserved bone density possibly due to its high fluoride, flavonoids and phytoestrogen content.

A Taiwanese study found that it is not the amount of tea a person drinks, but the long-term consumption of tea that makes the difference.

The National Cheung Kung University published a green tea and bone study in the May 2002 Edition of the Archive of Internal Medicine. The extensive study surveyed 1,037 Chinese adults tea drinking habits starting from 1996.

These are what the researchers found:

Benefits were most noticeable in people who drink at least 2 cups of green, oolong or black tea a day, for at least 6 years.
People who drink tea regularly for over 10 years have the highest overall bone mineral densities – 6.2% higher than non regular tea drinkers.
Regular tea drinkers for 6 to 10 years have bone mineral densities that are 2.3% higher than non regular tea drinkers.

2002 Study

Another study involved 1,256 women aged 65 to 76 in United Kingdom.

Researchers found that tea drinkers have 5% higher bone mineral densities after allowing for differences in age, body mass index, smoking status, the use of hormone replacement therapy, coffee drinking and the addition of milk.

The author concluded that drinking tea may protect against osteoporosis in older women.

2008 Study

Another 2008 study published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition confirmed that drinking tea protects women from bone loss and osteoporosis.

Amanda Devine of the University of Western Australia, Perth, measured the bone density of the hip at the beginning and ends of the five-year study. It added that women who were regular tea drinkers had a higher bone density in the hip compared with non-tea drinkers.

Researchers did not find a relationship between the number of cups of tea consumed per day and bone mineral density.

"Other variables, such as dietary calcium and coffee intake, physical activity, and smoking did not appear to be important confounders of the relation between tea and [bone density]."

One concern is that tea may interfere with the absorption of calcium and iron. But you can take some precautions against this.

Green Tea and Iron

2019 Study

A 2019 Chinese study that performs meta-analysis of 16 studies concluded that "tea consumption may be associated with a reduced risk of fractures."

“Tea is one of the popular beverages in the world. It has been widely used in medical field because it contains antioxidants such as catechins, thearubigin, theaflavin, and other flavonoids,” the researchers reported.

“So far, there is no report conclusively demonstrating the relationship between tea consumption and [osteoporosis]."

"In this report, we performed a meta-analysis of prospective cohort, case–control studies, and cross-sectional studies on the purpose of investigating the relationship between tea consumption and [osteoporosis].”

The researchers queried PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase databases for relevant studies through March 2019. The final analysis encompassed data on 772,707 total patients and 37,166 fracture cases.

Further Information

For further information on how to reduce the risk of osteoroposis, visit Cure-Back-Pain.org's Osteoporosis help page.

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References

Hegarty VM, May HM, Khaw KT (2002). Tea drinking and bone mineral density in older women. Am J Clin Nutr 71:1003-1007.

W Xiang, K Gu, W Wang, X Jiang (2019). Tea consumption and risk of fractures: an updated meta-analysis. Osteoporosis International, Medicine, Bone, American Journal of Epidemiology.

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